I feel passionate about what happens in the classrooms of today. In many of them (especially at the university level), the environment is still in the 19th century: the professor lectures, student crams for the final, student forgets within a month everything from the class.
I recently saw this little video. It’s rather powerful. It was created by Michael Wesch and 200 of his students at Kansas State University. I wonder how many university professors have seen it . . . I wonder if they changed anything they did because they watched it . . . Probably not . . .
A Vision of Students of Today by Michael Wesch at Kansas State University
Feel free to post comments and share your feelings about this clip.
Interesting video. I feel that students need to push for change and demand that secondary schools, universities and professors stop wasting their time with archaic teaching methods. I also feel that students need to step up to the plate and become students – not just warm bodies that breathe in and out as they sit in class, but people who engage themselves in the incredible opportunity of growing beyond Face Book and You Tube. It is time to learn and teach, maybe both at the same time. It seems that the more “things” we have to save time and help us to grow and learn, the more we allow those same things to distract us and fritter our time away. Does the word “focus” mean anything? Put the cell phone down, close Face Book and slowly walk away… – go live.
I do agree with changing the format of the insanely expensive, boring, but required textbooks – who came up with that? Okay people who want money, but when will the insanity stop? Besides that, they are just too heavy to lug around. The university experience is to help teach a person how to operate efficiently and effectively in the work world. You don’t see corporate executives lugging around a bunch of outdated books, so don’t force the potential executives to go the “old school” route. Let’s update school to become an actual place of learning.
You’ve got some excellent points!
Research has shown that students do not retain very long the information received in lecture format. University professors need to incorporate active learning where students are actively DOING something instead of just sitting like lumps on a log . . .